The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [73]
Nissa looked up from her work and noticed Sarah watching.
“That’s really impressive,” Sarah offered, surprised to find her words completely sincere.
“Thanks.” Nissa smiled, looking back at the form. “But I can’t get the face quite right.” She indicated the shapeless globe where the features should be, surrounded by carefully etched hair.
“Better than mine.”
Nissa laughed lightly “Considering you just started today and you’re only working with your left hand, it’s not bad.”
The vampire carefully wrapped her figure in plastic so it would not dry, and then shifted over to offer suggestions on Sarah’s project, which was a sickly-looking clay dog. They worked together for the last ten minutes of class, during which Sarah almost forgot what she was talking to.
“You could put a wire in his tail so it wouldn’t fall like that. What kind of dog is it?” Nissa asked.
Sarah shrugged. “I don’t really know. My mother doesn’t like dogs, so I’ve never had one.”
In fact, Dominique hated dogs. She was very against animals and witches mixing; the Vida line was one of the few that had never used familiars in its magic.
“It could kind of look like a Lab, if you squared off the nose,” the girl suggested. Under Nissa’s expert assistance the smooth white clay turned into an almost-recognizable animal.
“What do you have next?” Nissa asked as they packed the dog in plastic.
“Lunch, I think.”
“Great! You’re with Christopher and me.” The girl’s exuberance was infectious, but still Sarah hesitated at Nissa’s implied invitation. She could be sociable during class, but there were pages of laws in the Vida books detailing how far any relations with vampires could go. While the school cafeteria was not mentioned by name, Sarah was pretty sure it would be considered unnecessary association.
Still, Nissa walked with her through the halls, and even followed Sarah to her locker when she tried to use it as an excuse to drop the vampire.
Inside the locker, on the top shelf, Sarah noticed something she had not put there: a white piece of paper, on which a profile had been drawn carefully in pencil. She immediately recognized the figure as herself; her hair spilled over her shoulders and onto the desk as she wrote.
Nissa just shrugged when she saw the drawing and gave an understanding smile as Sarah read the initials signed in light script in the bottom corner. CR. It was from Christopher; he had probably drawn it while sitting right next to her in history class, when Sarah had been trying to ignore him.
CHAPTER 4
NISSA LED THE WAY to the table where she and her brother usually sat; Christopher was already there. Sarah thought again how lucky it was that neither Christopher nor Nissa was strong enough to read her aura.
Lucky … yeah, right. If she had been lucky they would have recognized her and avoided her from the start. As it was, she was going to need to find some way to break off the friendship they were obviously attempting to form — preferably without broadcasting her heritage to two vampires she knew next to nothing about.
“Sarah, sit down,” Christopher called. “How was sculpture?”
“Much more interesting than Mr. Smith’s history lecture,” Sarah answered vaguely. She hesitated by the table’s side, but as Nissa tossed her backpack on one of the chairs, Sarah reluctantly grabbed a seat of her own.
“Hey Nissa …” A human boy approached Nissa, but hesitated when he saw Sarah. She recognized him as Robert, the boy from her first class. The look he directed at her was anything but friendly. He turned back to Nissa. “I was wondering … if you’re going to the dance this weekend.”
Nissa looked from Robert to Sarah. “I’m going stag.”
“Oh, um …” He paused, then said something hurriedly that might have been, “See you there,” before he slipped back into the mass of students.
“What was that about?” Nissa asked as soon